On Feb 29, 8:04 am, GarageGuitar wrote:
LP:
Don't I wish I had another (larger) space available! The irony is that
my room is adjacent to a huge open basement space whch I'd love to
carve a chunk out of, but I've been vetoed by The Spouse. 
So I guess I'll be looking onto lots of foam..... Any ideas on how to
neatly foam a ceiling with pot lights in it? Maybe a checkerboard of
12x12 squares with lights in opne spaces......
Thanks for the input.
Regular foam is a really poor solution (it's almost transparent to
sound). The foam sold for audio treatment is good to break up sound
somewhat but mostly doesn't absorb bass (unless it's quite fat).
Check out bass traps - this will help enormously. Ethan Winer's
designs are elegantly simple and easy to build (and his site has lots
of info about how to use them). He's easily found on a Google search.
I wouldn't deaden the whole room. Put up some wood panels (at
angles) to resonate with your guitar and vocals. You could even make
them so that you can flip them around to change their amount of
reflectivity. Randomize the reflections of the live surfaces so that
you don't create standing waves. Playing or singing in a totally dead
room is really weird - you'll hate it.
How come you can't just use the basement rooms? Acoustic guitar and
vocals doesn't sound that annoying (unless you really suck)? You can
deal with a certain amount of ambient noise in the unsound proofed
rooms, by close micing. At least you could have some choices of
acoustics. Send the old bat to the movies and run some cables into
the living room. Quit your job and make her go out to work every day
while you record any damn where you want.
Why is it that I assume that you're the man and she is the wife? My
appologies if I got the sexes wrong.